


Enough

by NataliaWhite92



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Introspective Lena, Lena Luthor Needs a Hug, Touch Aversive Lena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 09:39:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18601915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NataliaWhite92/pseuds/NataliaWhite92
Summary: At the precipice of starting a something with Kara, Lena remembers her past relationships.





	Enough

**Author's Note:**

> This is heavy guys. It was sitting in my drafts for a long time but I decided to finally post it. I know it’s not something everyone will enjoy but I hope some people will connect with it.

She was fifteen the first time she let a boy touch her. She didn’t know at the time it shouldn’t feel like this and had been convinced to take part in some sort of deal with the devil hoping to trade love for release. She doesn’t remember much of it. It was cold when he took off her clothes. His stubble was rough when he kissed her lips and then lower. It hurt. She cried. He didn’t stop. When he was finished he wiped the mess on her bed sheets and said he would give her some time. He left. She cried again. 

She had given herself and he took. Then he left. She saw him at school the next day and he acted as if she had never existed. He laughed when the confusion took over her face. He laughed when she stuttered and tried to ask why he was acting like this. He laughed and his friends joined in when she cried. 

She thought this was what people were supposed to do when they loved someone. She didn’t know what love felt like but it had to be better than the darkness inside her chest that wrapped itself around her heart and tried to devour her. She read in hidden books, snuck out of the library, about the fluttering in the stomach, about the racing pulse, about the dilation of the eyes when you were attracted to someone. She had tried to feel those things with him. He had been so nice to her. Not like everyone else. 

She was lonely. She knew that’s what it was called because when she found the word in the dictionary she felt it resonate inside her. She knew the taste, the feel, the truth of the word she was finally able to name. Loneliness was going home after school and realizing she had been forgotten when her family went on a trip. Loneliness was crumpling up the mother’s day card she had crafted so carefully, taking as much time as her eight year old fingers would allow with scissors created for more dexterous people, because her step mother had scoffed and sneered. Loneliness was finding kindness in her older brother only to have him be sent off to a boarding school as to not be infected by Lena. 

She longed desperately for the reality of her books. The worlds of an apocalypse wasted future land where people had to band together to survive. The mythos of the gods and goddesses, bonds formed over millennia but personalities individual and still they fit together. The quest to save the world where fellowships were all important and they would never leave someone behind. The odyssey fraught with peril but worth it to return to a beloved who too had changed and now they could fall in love all over again. Books taught her the lessons her family neglected to bestow upon her. They were her sanctuary and her sanity. But she always felt something missing when she returned to her three dimensional life. 

She tried to make friends at school. But friendship was cultivated in the times when class let out. It was the sharing of secrets whispered across pillows at a slumber party. It was the accomplishments of being on a team together. It was the matching dolls, or action figures, or understood references in pop culture. She never knew the movement a wand made or the correct pronunciation, her attempts met with laughter and mocking. Nancy was the name of her great aunt but she knew that her classmates did not know her well enough to be talking about her all the time. She knew not of talking dogs or creatures that existed in balls until called forth to fight. She was living behind a barrier of her own creation, loneliness her only companion. 

She adapted. She continued. She waited until she grew old enough to escape. Then he happened. 

She knew objectively she was pretty. She had the hips, the breasts, and the bone structure of her face that people had been commenting on for as long as she could remember. She was immaculately put together and her clothes screamed of wealth. Her posture and etiquette lessons made it impossible for her not to hold herself a certain way. She was on a rigorous diet of both food and exercise that kept her in good shape, though never enough to discourage her mother’s cruelty. She knew she caught people’s eye, both male and female heads turned when she walked down the hallway. But like a priceless statue in the Louvre it was the unwritten rule of high school that you could look but never touch. No one needed to speak because like art, she would not respond and was assumed to share the coldness of beauty that is not really alive. 

He broke all the rules, the student body’s’ as well as her own. He sat next to her at lunch, he talked to her in class, and he walked next to her in the hall eventually offering to hold her books. He waited her out until she let her guard down and let him in. He was so kind, until he wasn’t. He listened like he actually wanted to know what was going on in her head, and then threw it back at her in a way that hurt so much more than barbs that hadn’t come from her own head. He told people about what had happened. Slut she heard, whore, tease. So many words used against girls by boys who were the ones that turned her into this. 

She was 16 when she graduated and left the town behind to move across the country. She took with her nothing but memories and a ratty bear that she couldn’t leave behind though she had stopped sleeping with him many years ago. 

She embraced the names she had been called back in that small town but with the power of her last name she became the one in charge. She invited them into her bed and then made them leave when it was done. She let them get her off and turned them away when they asked for more. She became the harlot, the siren, the lurer of men who thought themselves lucky. She had never felt more alone than when they were on top of her. 

She was so desperate for connection, so needy for reciprocal touch, so terrified to let it become more than mutual masturbation. She punished herself again and again for the sins of her family. She let these people take what they needed and then scrubbed her skin till it was red. She let her body become the repartitions deserved, a pound of flesh. She let her mind free to wait it out. 

It was a cycle that she couldn’t perpetuate forever. She felt herself taking longer and longer to come back after they had left until she was more scared of losing herself completely than never being touched again. 

She peeled another layer off herself as she left college. Shedding her skin like a snake until she was sheathed in a new one still adjusting to the world. This time she wouldn’t use her body to make connections. She would use her mind. 

She fell in love with Jack quickly, but told herself that she was mistaken again. Love was the climax to romance novels, the lottery that gave the downtrodden hope. It was not wholly fictional but the proliferation of belief that everyone could find it was cruel and she had no time for it. Most people would not find it, they would settle and convince themselves they were happy. Soul mates might exist but like God she believed it was better to not believe and be greeted with a pleasant surprise than to put your faith in something so untenable only to be disappointed. 

She kept Jack at a distance but he was respectful and understanding (as much as he could with her holding details so close to the vest). It made her love him even more. She loved his boundless optimism and his ability to create it in her when she thought it had been smothered years ago. She loved how he made her laugh when she was going blind from staring into a microscope for too many hours, and when she had finally emerged from her bubble of science he had some junk food waiting for her that her stomach both rejected and craved after a diet of day old coffee and frustration. She loved him because when he tried to hold her hand and she flinched so hard she automatically started to apologize he smiled and tried to hide the hurt in his eyes. He never reached for her again but when she touched his shoulder, or his arm, or once his cheek he accepted the glancing blows and never asked for more. 

She loved Jack so much that she had to leave him, hypocrite screaming in her mind as she boarded the plane and futilely looked for his beat up Kia missing paint and a front bumper but the safest she had ever felt in a car. He didn’t come. She had asked him not to after all, and if Jack was nothing else he was always respectful of her needs. Even the ones they both knew were more hurtful than helpful. 

She took over National City headquarters because it was expected, because she was the last one in her family who could, her stepmother having disappeared after accusations of embezzlement had chased her from the board of directors and the city. She resisted the urge to contact Jack, and with time it was easier and easier. She threw herself into work and into making a difference. There were never enough hours in the day, though she had dropped her bar for needed sleep down to the bare minimum to avoid hallucinations. She needed to do more, to give more, to be more. It was never enough. 

She expected the Supers sooner honestly. When they showed she was not surprised, neither was she when Clark Kent came a couple days later. Kara though, Kara surprised her. Those blue eyes seemed to see deep into her soul and instead of the scoff and derision she came to expect from everyone who interacted with her there was something else. Curiosity, kindness, gentleness, wonder, and pain. There was so much pain in those eyes that it almost took her breath away. What was locked beneath this woman’s sunny disposition and old-fashioned colloquialisms? What could she learn about her if given the chance? What could she learn about herself if she allowed this woman close? 

It was the later that made her cautious when accepting Kara into her life. But like the fate she used to cling to desperately in the books she devoured Kara would not be ignored. She didn’t force her way into her life. She was gentle, but not like Jack. Jack let her set every boundary. Jack let her be the shot caller. But Jack also never asked if that’s what she really wanted. He never looked her in the eyes and saw the war inside her to want something so bad it was killing her, but be terrified of actually getting it. Jack was passive, Kara though, Kara was active and alive. 

Kara showed up for interviews that slowly lead to lunches. Kara didn’t let her get away with her automatically self-critical defense mechanisms. Why let someone else insult you when you can beat them to the punch? Kara laughed and smiled and she found herself mirroring her until it wasn’t an effort but a needed release. Kara asked her questions; she actually had to think about why she said things when Kara was around. She had to examine the world she had created and the rationalizations she had forced into place that were starting not to fit anymore. Kara brought her out of the office, and always remembered a coffee for Jess. Kara remembered little things she mentioned months later and she felt herself melting at the attention paid to her. 

She was still terrified, how could she not be? The love she felt for Jack was the love of someone who had never experienced it before trying to understand the feelings of friendship and not being able to properly label them. Jack was safe because she would never want anything more from her and she knew he wouldn’t push. Kara was not safe. Kara would take a bullet for her but how could she explain that she would never be worth it. Kara wanted something more; she could see it in the glances, in the reminders she gave herself to not initiate physical contact though she was twitching to. She could see it when the lines that she usually drew were so far behind her that she no longer recognized any points of reference to where she was now. Kara was everything she could never have imagined, and more than she would ever deserve. 

How did she explain to someone so gentle, so perfect, so willing to look for the good in everyone that there was nothing inside her? That the good had been eaten up long ago and she could no longer remember what it had even felt like. She tried, she tried so many times to tell Kara that it couldn’t happen but it never worked. She could never actually take the hope out of her eyes. She wasn’t sure which was worse, allowing Kara to think this was a possibility or shutting it down once and for all. She wasn’t sure if she would survive either in the end. Maybe her brother could do her this one last favor and take the choice away from her; she could die a coward, alone as it had always been. 

Reflection was all well and good but she knew she was just avoiding the talk that she should be preparing for. She had asked Kara over to hers tonight after she had finished with her Supergirl duties, the blonde going as far as getting J’onn to cover for her so they wouldn’t be interrupted. Tonight was the night that she would tell Kara. That was as far as she had gotten though. She didn’t know what she wanted to tell her. Kara, who knew more about her than all of her overpaid shrinks put together. Kara, who not once had looked at her with anything but comfort in her eyes, and safety in her offered embrace that Lena had yet to accept. Kara, who would be here soon and if she had any hope of finishing a dinner fit for a hungry Kryptonian she better get to cooking. 

She was just pulling the third lasagna, this one with snuck in kale camouflaged beneath two different kinds of sausage and mountains of cheese, when Kara breezed in through the window. She shoots Lena a warm smile before holding up one finger and rushing through the apartment to change into something a little less covered in soot. Within seconds she comes up behind Lena in the kitchen, still vaguely smelling like fire, and cocks her head to the side in silent question to Lena’s lack of greeting. 

“Do you need any help? Rao Lena this smells so good, it must have taken you all day!” 

“If you want to set the table I’ll serve up dinner. Hand me the thanksgiving platter on the top shelf so I can use it for your plate, unless you would prefer to eat from the dish itself.” 

She raises her eyebrow and smirks at Kara’s disgruntled look and blush; the woman sticking out her tongue before turning to finish setting the table, already adorned with placemats and candles. She shakes her head when Kara motions at the bottle of wine from the rack that they had been drinking two nights ago when they last had dinner and asks for sparkling water instead. She wants wine, she actually wants whiskey, but she needs to be clear headed for this. It wouldn’t be fair to hide behind the loose tongue of alcohol when she might slip up and share more than she wants, or hurt the best friend she has ever had. 

They make small talk over dinner. Kara’s latest article, Lena’s latest explosion when she sneaks down to the lab over lunch, Snapper’s less literal explosion when she keeps having to disappear in the middle of the day, Alex’s much more literal explosions of many different varieties at the DEO. Lena relishes the comfortable way she doesn’t have to monitor herself around Kara. She can be exactly herself and not only is it accepted but embraced by the woman across from her trying not so subtly to pick out the kale from between the layers of lasagna. They both laugh when Kara realizes she’s been caught, and only grimaces a little when Lena’s eyebrow raises and she’s forced to eat her greens. 

They put the leftovers into containers and clean the dishes, without super powers, together. It's so domestic Lena has to clear her throat to dislodge the mess of feelings that seem to have taken up residence. Kara glances at her, questions again in her eyes, but Lena shrugs and hands her another plate to dry. Once everything has been put away, and there’s nothing left to do except actually talk to each other she nods to the couch and Kara happily follows her to it. She sits with a cushion between her and Lena and Lena’s heart reaches out to this beautiful woman. 

It’s not an uncomfortable silence, though the anticipation of what’s going to happen hovers between them. Kara waits for Lena to try to find the words while not paying attention to the HGTV they had put on as background noise. Lena watches her hands, those hands that help people everyday, that save lives and have hidden worlds of strength in them but also pet every dog that the hero comes in contact with, lend support of a different kind to those in her life when they need it, inch toward her unconsciously when Kara doesn’t even realize it. They are the only hands she wants to touch, and she had thought about touching them many times. She has thought about how easy it would be to reach across the cushion and take Kara’s hand in her own. To trace the tendons across the back and the lines of her palm. To get to know the texture of eachsection, each dip and curve, each scar that doesn’t mar but decorate her beautiful flesh though there are far fewer on Kara’s impenetrable skin than on Lena’s own. Only the ones she got before she left Krypton still showing just like the scar above her eyebrow. She talks herself into touching one, even for a fleeting second, but draws back and takes a breath instead. 

“Kara…” She’s trying. She’s trying so hard to say something. She watches Kara turn toward her and open herself up to whatever is about to come out of Lena’s mouth. She puts up no barriers though she has to know this isn’t going to be the kind of conversation that they usually have. She just waits, and smiles, and offers whatever she can to make this easier on Lena. 

“I can’t give you what you want.” She tries. But it’s not right. Kara is correct when she responds with Lena doesn’t know what she wants, because she has never told her. Lena assumed and feels chastised when Kara calls her on it. 

“No Lena, please don’t shut down. I’m not telling you you’re wrong in your assumptions but just asking to let me tell you first.” 

Lena nods and raises her eyes to her friend’s face. Those eyes are so clear, even through the emotions struggling to get out. Lena feels just like the first time she met Kara, when she was being weighed and measured but for once not immediately found wanting. 

“I love you Lena. I love you so much and I want nothing more than to have you in my life. I know that you’re scared. I know that no one has ever given you the chance to learn to fall so when you do it’s like crashing into the ground going a million miles an hour. But Lena, I’ve crashed too. And it’s disorienting and scary and you don’t know what’s going on but it’s also worth it. I’m not going to beg you to give us a chance, it’s not right for anyone to be forced into a situation by any means of persuasion if it’s not what they want. But I’m here, and if you want me, I always will be.” 

“You can’t promise that Kara. You can’t sit here and say these things when you don’t know if you will be here. You could leave, at any moment you could leave, and I’ll be alone again except then I will know what it is like to have you.” 

She is crying, she has been crying since Kara had told her she loves her because she loves her back. She loves her more than she has ever loved anything before and she feels it push to be released. But she doesn’t look away. She doesn’t hide. She watches Kara watch her and traces the tears falling down Kara’s cheek with her eyes, desperately wanting to catch them. 

“You’re right Lena. I can’t promise I’ll never leave. But I can promise that right now, there is nothing you could do or say to me that would make me abandon you. I told you I would always protect you, I promised Lena. I don’t break my promises.” 

“You don’t know everything about me Kara. I am not someone from a fairy tale, just waiting to be saved and made whole by the love of some white knight.” 

“Of course you’re not,” she watches Kara hold herself back from reaching toward her. She folds her hands in her lap, clasping them tight together between her legs and adjusting often but as always not pushing, “you’ve never needed saving Lena. You could never be some damsel. You are the knight Lena. You are the chosen one and the heroine, you are the little person with the hairy feet who saves the world, you are the strongest of all of us. You are everything Lena.” 

Lena laughs, she laughs so hard she cries some more. She laughs at Kara trying to remember her favorite book. She laughs at Kara wiggling around when she is giving the most heartfelt speech she has ever heard. She laughs because she can and because this is what freedom feels like. It was another word in the dictionary that she found all those years ago. Freedom, so different than loneliness because it had yet to be defined but was just as powerful to the young girl. 

She holds Kara’s hand for the first time that night as they watch tv and talk during commercials. They talk more about them and what it could mean. They talk about fears when they arise for both of them. They talk about telling their friends eventually but for now keeping it safe between the two of them. They talk about talking and communication, safe words that apply at all times when one of them needs to take a step back. Lena realizes she is not alone in her fears and the confirmation that Kara is just as scared hits Lena harder than anything else. She is scared like Lena is, does that mean she has as much to lose? Lena lets the hope she has held for so long blossom in her chest. Maybe Kara needs her like she needs Kara. 

When Kara leaves that night it isn’t with a kiss at the door. It isn’t with anything different than their normal goodbye except for an extra squeeze of their hands. They talked a little bit about the physicality of their relationship but just as Kara didn’t know what to ask Lena didn’t know how to answer. It was changing she hoped, a big step had been taken tonight. That didn’t mean that she was ready for anything else besides holding hands. She told this to Kara. 

“If this is all we ever get it’s enough Lena. Having you like this, or any way you would like to share with me, will always be enough. You, Lena, are enough.”

She squeezes Kara’s hand once more and catches the kiss that she blows at her. She holds it to her heart as Kara giggles, causing her to as well. Kara tells her she loves her again before she leaves, a pep in her step that Lena also holds with the kiss. She will tell Kara she loves her back, but for now this is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> There are a lot of parts of myself in this fic, which is something I don’t do too often because it’s hard to talk about but it’s also cathartic to write it down and send it off.  
> Thanks for reading :)  
> Feel free to leave a comment or message me on tumblr if you wanna talk about anything:  
> Nataliawhite92


End file.
